Hello,
I am not going to cover how to set up a forum because I think it is pretty straight forward. There are also plenty of tutorials on creating a forum here on SF. I am going to assume you already have your forum set up for this tutorial.
So anyone can make a forum, but how do you get people on it? would YOU join a forum with no posts and 1 member? I don't think so. I wouldn't, that's for sure. So here are some ways to get people to join and before I tell them to you I would like to point out that it is NOT easy and can also involve (like most websites) an initial investment. I think everyone who uses forums, would like a successful forum of their own and if it were easy they would all have one and if they all had one that would be way too many and there would be no active forums.
Ok so first of all you need CONTENT!!!!! This is fundamental. There are many ways to get content and these depend on what type of forum you have. If you have a niche forum like for example Hacking, this is easy. All you need to do is get a bunch of hacking tools and write a bunch of tutorials and put them on your forum (also don't expect to make a successful hacking forum if you don't know anything about hacking, people try to do it all the time and I think it is literally impossible). If you have a general chat forum this is hard. Your best bet is to get all your buddies + paid posters to post on it and get the 24 hour who's online plugin to make your forum seem more active. You can also do PPP and pay people for how much they post and this will bring activity to your forum but I must warn it is not ideal because then when you stop doing it people will stop posting because that's the only reason they were posting in the first place.
Here is an example of what I mean. I'm in this group called HF C++ and we have a private forum for our members and I'm always looking for ways to improve it. Well Omni has this website called MyBB Central which has a ton of great plugins that I want. So what do I do? I sign up. Not only that, but I PAY $10 to sign up. Not only that, but there is ONLY 1 OTHER PERSON ONLINE! Yes, I paid $10 to have a premium membership at a forum where at any given time there is less than 5 people online. Why would I do this? Because they have GREAT content. So great that I will pay to have access to it.
Speaking of MyBB Central, another tip to keep people posting is to hand out awards like here on SF or on HF (this plugin is available at MyBB Central) and it is good for encouraging activity if you are using MyBB.
Another tip is to make it exclusive. Make an invite system and put killer content in it and spread the word and people will be more eager to join.
So now you have some initial content, but you want USERS! Well in order to get users you need traffic. Don't use adwords or anything like that and don't just post your forum here on SF and ask people to join. You will probably get about 5-10 signups... ever (and only 3 of them will post). The best way to gain activity is to work with other forum owners. Let me show you what I mean. For example, Support Forums I'd say gets about 40% of it's users from Hack Forums because Omni tells the members about it and gives the Support Feather Award as an incentive to join so many members in seek of an award (I told you awards are great) will come here an post. Or another example is Runescape discussion is banned on HF for some reason and Omni said for all RS discussion to take place at this other guy's RS forum. And for some reason all of a sudden that forum is doing great. If you can work out an advertising/traffic exchange forums with other similar sized forums or maybe pay a more active forum for promotion you will do well and once your forum has a good bit of activity some smart advertising and SEO will give you the forum of your dreams.
So in summary:
-Content
-Awards Or Exclusivity - AKA Incentive
-Don't use adwords or spam another forum for recruits
-Work with other forum owners
-Profit
If you are wondering how I know this stuff. I used to run a fairly successful flash animation forum.
Best of luck with your forums and thanks for reading!
-LiamLC
I am not going to cover how to set up a forum because I think it is pretty straight forward. There are also plenty of tutorials on creating a forum here on SF. I am going to assume you already have your forum set up for this tutorial.
So anyone can make a forum, but how do you get people on it? would YOU join a forum with no posts and 1 member? I don't think so. I wouldn't, that's for sure. So here are some ways to get people to join and before I tell them to you I would like to point out that it is NOT easy and can also involve (like most websites) an initial investment. I think everyone who uses forums, would like a successful forum of their own and if it were easy they would all have one and if they all had one that would be way too many and there would be no active forums.
Ok so first of all you need CONTENT!!!!! This is fundamental. There are many ways to get content and these depend on what type of forum you have. If you have a niche forum like for example Hacking, this is easy. All you need to do is get a bunch of hacking tools and write a bunch of tutorials and put them on your forum (also don't expect to make a successful hacking forum if you don't know anything about hacking, people try to do it all the time and I think it is literally impossible). If you have a general chat forum this is hard. Your best bet is to get all your buddies + paid posters to post on it and get the 24 hour who's online plugin to make your forum seem more active. You can also do PPP and pay people for how much they post and this will bring activity to your forum but I must warn it is not ideal because then when you stop doing it people will stop posting because that's the only reason they were posting in the first place.
Here is an example of what I mean. I'm in this group called HF C++ and we have a private forum for our members and I'm always looking for ways to improve it. Well Omni has this website called MyBB Central which has a ton of great plugins that I want. So what do I do? I sign up. Not only that, but I PAY $10 to sign up. Not only that, but there is ONLY 1 OTHER PERSON ONLINE! Yes, I paid $10 to have a premium membership at a forum where at any given time there is less than 5 people online. Why would I do this? Because they have GREAT content. So great that I will pay to have access to it.
Speaking of MyBB Central, another tip to keep people posting is to hand out awards like here on SF or on HF (this plugin is available at MyBB Central) and it is good for encouraging activity if you are using MyBB.
Another tip is to make it exclusive. Make an invite system and put killer content in it and spread the word and people will be more eager to join.
So now you have some initial content, but you want USERS! Well in order to get users you need traffic. Don't use adwords or anything like that and don't just post your forum here on SF and ask people to join. You will probably get about 5-10 signups... ever (and only 3 of them will post). The best way to gain activity is to work with other forum owners. Let me show you what I mean. For example, Support Forums I'd say gets about 40% of it's users from Hack Forums because Omni tells the members about it and gives the Support Feather Award as an incentive to join so many members in seek of an award (I told you awards are great) will come here an post. Or another example is Runescape discussion is banned on HF for some reason and Omni said for all RS discussion to take place at this other guy's RS forum. And for some reason all of a sudden that forum is doing great. If you can work out an advertising/traffic exchange forums with other similar sized forums or maybe pay a more active forum for promotion you will do well and once your forum has a good bit of activity some smart advertising and SEO will give you the forum of your dreams.
So in summary:
-Content
-Awards Or Exclusivity - AKA Incentive
-Don't use adwords or spam another forum for recruits
-Work with other forum owners
-Profit
If you are wondering how I know this stuff. I used to run a fairly successful flash animation forum.
Best of luck with your forums and thanks for reading!
-LiamLC
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